Here’s my basic problem with The Artist, which I saw two weeks ago: The more I try to think about it, the more I end up thinking about something else.
Don’t mistake my tone there – it’s a very good movie, at different points entertaining, funny, and poignant; beautifully shot and staged; and simply written with little that doesn’t belong. But it didn’t stick with me at all; a great movie will come back to me often, days or even weeks after I see it, with the best scenes replaying in my head regardless of whether I called them to mind. I end up considering and reconsidering themes or questions or ambiguities, often until I see a different film. But The Artist brought none of that. It was a fun way to spend two hours, but I couldn’t call it more than that.
The Artist is, at heart, a tragic romance, the story of a man, George Valentin, who is madly in love with himself – so much so that he can’t seem to recognize it when someone else actually cares about him. The title might even be ironic, and given how he treats most of the people in his life, especially after his career begins to unravel, it might have more accurately been called The Asshole.
Valentin (Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin) is a silent-film star whose life is altered by two major events near the start of the film. One is the advent of talkies, which he dismisses as might anyone who finds his livelihood threatened by new technology or innovation. (I imagine buggy drivers had some choice words for the first automobile as well.) The other is a chance encounter with an adoring fan, the fresh-faced and aptly-named Peppy Miller (Best Supporting Actress nominee Berenice Bejo), to whom George gives a role as an extra in his next film. Her star rises with the rise of sound in pictures while he is cast aside, eventually blowing his fortune to produce a silent film that, for a variety of reasons, tanks at the box office, after which his wife leaves him and his life spirals down to the bottom of a series of bottles. He hits bottom twice, and Peppy ends up in position to repay him for his part in starting her career – if only he wasn’t too buried in self-pity to notice.
The strongest aspects of the movie lie in its subtleties, as the plot itself is pretty straightforward and there aren’t any real subplots. Peppy criticizes silent movies once she’s a star by referring to actors “mugging” for the camera, but Bejo and Dujardin mug a lot less than I expected without sacrificing the expression a silent film requires from its stars. I was far more impressed by the mass of activity underneath the film’s surface, some of which holds clues to the small twist at the end of the film that casts Valentin in a better light (but only slightly), some of which just made the film a greater pleasure to watch – such as the scene in the studio’s offices where the camera shows three floors simultaneously, with a flurry of activity around Peppy and George as she tries to reconnect with him, unaware that he’s just been sacked by the studio.
But the production values and strong performances couldn’t quite get me past how sparse the actual story was. Valentin starts at the top, falls to the bottom, nearly dies, considers suicide, but never seems to learn a damn thing – not the need to change, not the value of treating people well, not how to live within his means, nothing. Only at the very end do we see a small sign that he may have learned some humility, but even that is tainted by its circumstances. He waited around for life to come back around and save him. We spend more time laughing at misfortunes of his own making than we do empathizing with him because we never seen the insecurity that lurks behind the pride.
The dog is awesome, though.
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I was familiar enough with the film going in to try to guard against the reflex reaction that the film only won the Academy Award for Best Picture because it seemed designed to win the award – a black-and-white love letter to nascent Hollywood shot in 4:3 with only two lines of spoken dialogue, coming at the very end of the film. And, to the film’s credit, it wasn’t hard to get lost in the story, even with the twists I kind of knew were coming. But it seemed rather insubstantial for a Best Picture winner, according to the arbitrary standard in my head for that award. I expect more depth from a film deemed the best of the year by that body.
I’ve only seen one other Best Picture nominee from last year, and The Artist was better, but I’m not sure what made this film, stripped of gimmickry, better than, say, Martha Marcy May Marlene. It’s prettier, and more mainstream, and not half as disturbing, but none of those things really makes it better. I’ll work my way through the nominees as I did last year, as well as a few movies that film-critic friends of mine have pushed me to see (coughA Separationcough), but I’ll predict now that I’ll find something else I thought was more deserving. Next up is Drive
about the buggy drivers comment: my grandma used to tell me stories about how her father and his friends, around the turn of the century, would always shout at car drivers “get a horse!” and other stuff like that because cars were constantly breaking down and getting stuck in the mud. also how he told her horse-drawn carriage drivers weren’t worried about cars either.
just thought i’d mention since the buggy driver comment brought back that memory.
This is basically the most common critique for why The Artist shouldn’t have won Best Picture, and I can’t say I disagree with it. However, the notion that The Artist was tailor made to win the Oscar is kind of ridiculous and only came up when it became clear it would win. Believe it or not it’s actually the first film about Hollywood to win, not to mention the first one from outside the UK/US. And being black and white, mostly silent and in 4:3 usually aren’t Oscar catnip these days. This wasn’t The King’s Speech, which people thought would win the minute they started filming.
Anyways, can’t say The Artist was my favorite of the year or even of the nominees (that would be The Tree of Life) for the reasons you state in your review, but my friends who always complain that the Academy never goes for comedy were thrilled and The Artist is delightful enough that I didn’t mind it’s win.
Can’t wait to see what you think of Drive.
I think The Artist’s lack of depth has been a little overblown in response too it’s awards win, call it a backlash I guess. The film is largely about what it can mean to become obsolete when technology and culture pass you by. I see this all the time with older people who aren’t computer proficient and are thus far less productive at work than those who are. Not the most original theme, and Moneyball actually provided an interesting inversion of the same theme with Beane suffering criticism for his new and novel player valuation for large portions of that film.
Overall it was a pretty weak year for “nominateable” films. Films like Drive, MMMM, or even The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, all of which I really enjoyed, were never going to get wide support from the Academy and early favorites like War Horse turned out to be largely duds. The Artist was sort of a shrug your shoulders “it’s good enough” pick. The brave choice would have been A Separation easily the best written film since Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network.
Word of caution on Drive, its a great ride, but is totally devoid of greater meaning. Just a film to get drunk on its style.
Like you, Keith, I was not blown away by this movie. Not only did I find the plot unoriginal (which isn’t in of itself a problem if it’s treated right, often through dialogue) but the movie used imagery that was old during the time in which the movie is set. Two characters are on a set of stairs and the direction they are traveling mirrors the trajectory of their career at the moment. A character is sitting in a room as it rains outside at night and the shadows of the water on the window are projected on the character’s face, making it look like tears. Characters pass movie marquees or posters and the titles of the movies advertised explain the mood of the scene. The best part of the movie for me was the score, which I purchased after getting home from the theater. It’s a good movie, worthy even of a Best Picture nomination, but I have to think there were better movies this year (I’ve heard great things about The Descendants). The only other Best Picture nominee I’ve seen is Midnight in Paris which I can’t understand how it got nominated other than out of nostalgia for Woody Allen. But if you want to watch a good, modern Woody Allen movie, check out Match Point.
Tony Kornheiser said it was the best silent movie of the year
“Drive” was the best movie I saw last year, and my favorite action movie since “The Dark Knight”. The opening sequence in particular is one of the best-shot scenes I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough, though the second half if definitely violent.
Didn’t care for Drive. Outside of some nice car scenes, there’s nothing much to the movie. Not enough Albert Brooks ( great one liner) as the bad guy. Story just falls flat and you don’t get invested in the characters at all. It was not a great year for film, IMO. I do have to see ‘The Descendants’ and a couple others. I’ll get around to ‘The Artist’ when it’s on cable. Right now I’m wrapped up in S2 of ‘Justified’ now that ‘The Walking Dead’ just ended. Decent show. Timothy Olyphant and Margo Martindale are very good. And can’t wait for the return of ‘Breaking Bad’.
Drive? I’m sorry, I don’t believe that you should spend time on a movie that wasn’t even nominated by the Academy Award as one of the best pictures of the year. Would you be interested in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” or “Some Cheesy Movie About A Damn Horse?”